Banging the drum for the BBC

At last. After several years of hearing the BBC and its public service remit being picked away at by the people who hope to benefit (financially, at the very least) from its decline, the Director General, Mark Thompson, has struck back with a powerful defence of the culture, ethos, purpose and performance of the Corporation.

In the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture in Edinburgh last night he talked tough and he challenged those who wish to see the BBC weakened. Predictably, the instant response from representatives of Sky and other independents was to claim the lecture amounted to little more than ‘a plea for the licence fee’. Why predictable? Because it is easier even for professionals to sneer than to engage with the debate on reasonable terms.

First of all, Thompson was not defensive about the BBC (in a protectionist way) and openly described the challenges facing the organisation in the next few years. One of these challenges is the deliberate negativity within the media industry (and politics) regarding the BBC:

The purists have spent a generation making the free market case for abolishing the licence fee and the British public agrees with them less now than they did when they started. Nor is there any evidence that the public have any enthusiasm for the privatisation of Channel 4, the Arts Council of the Air or any of the other schemes which the hardliners have come up over the years. But of course you wouldn’t know any of this if you based your assessment of public attitudes to British broadcasting on the evidence of most of the UK’s national newspapers. Systematic press attacks on broadcasters, and especially on the BBC, are nothing new of course ⎯ the first hostile campaigns began back in John Reith’s day ⎯ but the scale and intensity of the current assaults does feel different.

He then goes on to ram the point home:

Often the reporters freely admit to us that they know the story they’re working on is going to be ramped up, distorted or just plain nonsense. But as one journalist said to one of my colleagues recently: ‘It doesn’t matter about the facts, they just want to trash you.’ Now that’s what I call refreshing honesty. Not the public interest. Not accountability. We just want to trash you.

Now, hurting the feelings of BBC leaders is not the issue here. The issue is why there is such a strong agenda of negativity in sectors of the UK media against an institution revered around the world and (as every poll seems to suggest) loved by the public? (Read the report – he quotes figures.) By the time he has a go at Sky and the Murdoch Empire, it is clear that he is suspicious of the motives behind criticism from certain quarters.

Secondly, Thompson talks up the wider broadcasting field and stresses the need for a strong Channel 4, a strong ITV and a strong independent sector. Yet, he sees that strength lying in the commissioning of and investment in excellent British creative programming. Why? In order that all people have access to the best and that we are not reduced to a lowest common denominator culture in which we simply buy in – regardless of quality – what everybody else is making abroad:

Exceptional per capita investment in new production has meant that we have a far bigger position in the most expensive forms of TV drama, comedy, landmark factual not a sufficient condition for producing the best TV in the world, but it is a necessary one.

As everyone knows, much of that investment derives from direct and indirect public intervention. Free market purists claim that, if you reduced or eliminated this intervention, the market would simply fill the gap. But look around the world. There are plenty of countries where public intervention is on the wane – licence fees cut, public broadcasters in decline – but in no country anywhere has the market stepped up to replace the lost programme investment.

But do not believe anyone who claims that cutting the licence fee is a way of growing the creative economy or that the loss in programme investment which would follow a substantial reduction in the BBC’s funding could be magically made up from somewhere else. It just wouldn’t happen. A pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of UK creative economy. Once gone, it will be gone forever.

Thompson makes his case strongly, but the speech needs to be read as a whole and only then addressed critically. The BBC faces significant challenges, but it needs people at the top who believe in it, are not afraid of fighting for it and can articulate a vision for its confident role in the emerging digital world. It feels to me like we have heard a strong first strike. We need more.

I didn’t realise I felt so strongly about the value of the BBC in this competitive world until I heard James Murdoch’s MacTaggart Lecture last year. The brazen amorality of his case and the deliberate omission of anything that confounded his argument (News Corp says it wants competition, but actually wants to be dominant across the media platforms, eliminating the competition it doesn’t like…) was shocking. The massive progress led by Murdoch Senior in changing the way the media operate were undermined (in my view and that of some others who are interested in media policy) by Murdoch Junior’s arrogance – the arrogance of those who have power and know they have the money to increase their concentration of power. As Thompson observes:

Sky is already a far more powerful commercial counterweight to the BBC than ITV ever was. It is well on its way to being the most dominant force in broadcast media in this country. Moreover, if News Corp’s proposal to acquire all of the remaining shares in Sky goes through, Sky will not just be Britain’s biggest broadcaster, but a full part of a company which is also dominant in national newspapers as well as one of the Britain’s biggest publishers.

According to Enders analysis, it will be a concentration of cross-media ownership which would not be allowed in the United States or Australia, News Corp’s other two most important markets.

Compare the ethical assumptions behind these two statements:

There is an inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society. The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.

and

People say to me ⎯ ‘aren’t you afraid that Sky is going to start spending more on original British programmes and will therefore be competing head-to-head with you?’ But that’s what should happen. It would be good for the BBC. It would be good for the industry. It would be good for the public… What would success look like? Strong creative and commercial revival at ITV, 4 and 5. A Sky which was as proud of spending hundreds of millions of pounds on new British programmes as on the HBO archive. British producers succeeding in international markets, not at the expense of quality but because of it.

The former was James Murdoch’s conclusion, the latter Mark Thompson’s.

Mark Thompson has taken the debate to the nay-sayers and has raised the rhetorical stakes. There are interesting times ahead.

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14 Responses to “Banging the drum for the BBC”

Posted August 28, 2010 18:08:00
The director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, has defended the corporation against attacks by one of its main rivals and other critics in Britain.
Mr Thompson has told an audience…

If you buy and read the Radio Times or other TV paper which shows the almost endless number of channels today, look for something ‘original’. It is very hard to find, and the idea that Sky would invest in British drama is ostrich thinking. Murdoch is American orientated and has been for years, any ‘original’ production would be made in America and imported to Britain. Long may the BBC be allowed to continue making ‘original’ programmes. They are very good at it.

The other day I was watching Sky News (from South Africa) and after the fifth repeat of two stories – a woman who put a cat in a dustbin and a corrupt businessman who returned to the UK after 17 years in Occupied Cyprus. I switched to the BBC to see if anything else was going on in the world. There was.

Er, hello Kevin the Daily Show is on More 4 and it is a satire programme. It tries to be ironic/satirical about such things as Fox News, NBC News, CBS News etc. It is not a real news programme it is a faux news programme. Though ironically it is one of the best. Did you see Glen Beck on it?

I am a critic of the BBC for lengthy reasons that it would be impolite to rehearse at length on your blog.

I should say however that some of us do not want to abolish the BBC but would rather -like the early Church reformers – prefer to provoke an internal reformation.

There are some signs of intelligent reflection but a long way to go.

If you want to understand where I come from try reflecting a few minutes on the similarities between the BBC and the unreformed Medieval Church! There are more than you might expect. At the very least it makes for an interesting Parlour game.

Martin old chap I need more than that, spell it out for me. Be impolite it might help me at least. I haven’t got a parlour to play in. Can’t believe the BBC or the church could cope with enlightment 02 The church is still choking on Dawkins et al.

Nick I don’t want to push this too hard but frankly if you guys spent more time dealing with the planks in your own eyes and a lot less on the tiny speck in Dawkin’s eye, then you’d prosper a lot more. People like Ian Paisley and Pat Robertson (it’s a long list) etc have done more for atheism than all of the so called new atheists. Check out your blog Richard gets more blog time than any other person. Not just you but others. I’ve read more about him and Hitchens/Harris on Xtian sites than even Jesus.I could go on and will do willingly if you want. I am serious I may be wrong but I’m willing to be corrected. Oh and I have read The Dawkin’s Delusion if it sprang into your mind. Recommended by a pastor friend of mine.

Steve, we spend our lives checking our specks. Choosing Paisley and Robertson is like me choosing Stalin and Mao to write off atheism. There are atheists I know (mainly academics) who despair of Dawkins for the simple reason that they think he does their cause too much damage.

Ok Nick, I just think your speck checking is perhaps conducted out of the public eye. I’m not in fact an atheist if I had to put a name to my view in would be an agnostic. You are right to correct me on your Dawkin’s name checking. But I don’t so easily take your Mao/Stalin riposte (but thanks for not mentioning Hitler as so many do) for the simple reason that both of these gentlemen were at the head of ism’s that bear so many of the hallmarks of religions. They have a theology a set of beliefs and woe betide anyone who doubts. They both had their inquisitions. And I don’t know a great deal about Mao but Stalin was trained as an Orthodox priest and I think (not sure) rejoined the church just before his death. I would appreciate a list of the academics who are not keen on Dawkin’s support (I know of one and I think he’s jealous) . I’ve been a reader of your blog for a while and of course hear your thoughts for the day. I am not ill disposed to you at all. But just to show I’m not all sweetness and light. I’ve noticed that the more intelligent and ‘educated’ the Christian the less of a Christain they seem to be. I listened to Rev David Wilkinson today on R4 and his Christianity seems to have turned into mere deism akin to Spinoza than anything I can think of at the moment (I should be in bed). You see I don’t quite know where you stand, on the Bibles inerrancy an all the rest. I would be interested to see what you would nail to the door.
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Before we get too far off topic and into the atheism/religion debate, let’s get back to the subject of the BBC.

Like democracy, the BBC seems like a poor idea until you look at the alternatives. A couple of visits to Canada have convinced me that, whatever its flaws (and those of Channel 4 for that matter), I would really miss the BBC if Murdoch and his ilk had their way. My son and his Canadian in-laws use BBC internet services quite extensively. Over the past few years I have noticed that most of the TV I watch regularly is from either the BBC or Channel 4 (including E4). The main exceptions are the few quality dramas (such as Lewis) and ITV4’s annual coverage of the Tour de France. I refuse to pay Murdoch money to finance his takeover of major sporting and other events.

Not only does the BBC produce much excellent home-grown material, but it is almost the only broadcaster to provide programming from outside the English-speaking world on a regular basis.

There are debates to be had about exactly what the remit of the BBC should be, how it should be structured and whether it provides value for money in its remuneration of directors and “big-name” celebrities. But it is hard to see how, without it, similar standards and breadth of output could be achieved. If we are not careful we will simply put another nail in the coffin of British (and more generally, European) culture.